I don't disagree with you, but I think it's hard to convince the Israel government, since the last time Israel withdrew from Gaza (in 2005), a terrorist organization was elected and it resulted in multiple wars and waves of violence, leading up to the current conflict.
First, 60-70% of Israeli Jews are of Arabic descent, not European.
Second, while it's possible to complain about the circumstances of the creation of Israel, I'm not sure that doing so now, in context, offers anything constructive. It seems that by most reasonable definitions, Israel is a country, if a small one. Do you suggest that Israel be eradicated? If so, what happens to all the Israelis, who likely wouldn't be welcome in the area after the country's destruction? Is it any more justifiable to ethnically cleanse one group from the area than another?
I don't have an answer to this conflict, but it isn't clear to me that suggesting "this country shouldn't have existed at all" is an answer either.
Currently, housing availability is not a factor in immigration policy. Canada allowed over 1.2 million new residents last year. There were approximately 200k new houses built in that same time frame. Interpret this as you will.
Yes, it is hard to overstate: the current admin has given zero thought to anything other than "bring more people in".
Housing supply, healthcare, broad service capacity, everything that is meaningfully impacted by adding more residents, has mostly been ignored for years.
Housing supply in particular was already in bad shape 10 years ago, so we are seeing the compounding effects of that in 2024 as immigration skyrockets.
Imagine adding 1.2 millon people to a country with only 39 million already, in just one year! I think it's pretty clear there are many wrong/bad ways to pull that off, and we chose most of them.
How many vacancies are there? How many of the new residents are joining an existing household, and how many are family groups that will share a house?
The numbers you've cited don't sound completely out of line. The counterpoint is that housing prices have increased so dramatically.
I don't see it mentioned, but I assume wealthy people without price sensitivity around the world are purchasing extra properties in Canada as climate refuges in a relatively stable democracy, and using AirBNB to generate income from them while they are not needed.
> I don't see it mentioned, but I assume wealthy people without price sensitivity around the world are purchasing extra properties in Canada as climate refuges in a relatively stable democracy, and using AirBNB to generate income from them while they are not needed.
Yes, this has been happening exactly. Although some foreign investors are also just speculating without running an Airbnb. Recent taxation introduced on unoccupied housing has combatted this somewhat, but it's still a problem. But it's also worth noting that this only accounts for a small portion of the housing stock, probably dwarfed by Canadian nationals or corporations buying multiple properties and using them to run Airbnbs, or real estate companies buying property and keeping it unoccupied while it's on market.
I do think the "foreign investor" complaint is exaggerated as a root cause of our systemic housing issues (likely because people find it easier to point the finger abroad), though it is still a contributing factor.
Canada is in the top end of the OECD when it comes to building housing. The problem is that the rate of new house construction has been severely outpaced by population growth. Canada has the highest rate of population growth of any developed nation and it is largely spurred by immigration.
As a supplement to this excellent breakdown of laser cutting, can I recommend the Guerrilla Guide to CNC [0]. To this day, it's the best reference I've ever read on small volume fabrication with a CNC machine and/or 3D printer. If you enjoyed the original post, you may enjoy this as well.
If the first person did not want to eat, he would have answered "No, we are not ready". Him not being ready is enough to negate the whole thing. He doesn't know if the both of them are ready to eat though, because he doesn't know that the second man is ready or not (the second man hasn't revealed his state yet).
Therefore, the second man knows that the first is ready to eat, since the first's answer is "I don't know". Since the second man knows that he himself is ready to eat, he can answer: "we are both ready to eat".
Aviation in general is very safe. However, there is clearly something wrong in Boeing's design and manufacturing process that's persisted for many years. I would not feel comfortable flying in any of the new 737 MAX's and will avoid flying in one as much as possible.
> They are also less productive when coding than the scientists because they care too much about the quality of their work and not enough about getting shit done.
You can't solve the first 3 issues without having people who care about software quality. People not caring about the quality of the software is what caused those initial 3 problems in the first place.
And you can't fix any of this as long as "software quality" (the "best practices") means byzantine enterprise architecture mammoths that don't even actually fix any of the quality issues.
There are crazy over-engineered solutions with strict requirements and insane dependency management with terrible trade-offs and compromises. I've worked in the aerospace field before, so I've seen how terrible this can be. It's also possible to have unit tests, have a design and have documentation without the above and would go a long way to solve the original 3 issues.
> Yeah, if only scientists would put the same care into the quality of their science...
I guess we see survivorship bias here: the people who deeply care about the quality of their science instead of bulk producing papers are weeded out from their scientific jobs ... :-( Publish or perish.
In my experience, the "benefit of the doubt" has been lost in relation to this subject. I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil. It's tragic and a tragic subject, although I dispute the "there couldn't be a more significant current event" - lots of events are equally (or more) significant and relevant. I hope to be proven wrong, but I have doubts.
> I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil.
I bet almost no one in this thread is able to juggle three balls either, even though learning how to do so doesn't take all that much practice. But it does take some practice.
Should we be surprised when people are unable to do something that requires practice and education, when they lack both?
I (and many other users of this forum) have expectations on the minimum quality of discourse. Moreover, I am happy this forum exists with its quality of discussion. I am interested in preserving this high level of civilized interactions.
Time and time again, when it comes to the subject of Israel and Palestine, it has been shown that the discourse never meets the minimum standards I usually enjoy here. To the point where I am not sure if it's even theoretically possible.
To use your metaphor - if this were a forum about juggling, I would generally expect people to have an honest interest in juggling, and to have discussions about juggling. If every discussion about curling, on my juggling forum, devolved into abuse - it would be reasonable to avoid discussing curling (at a certain point).
> I am interested in preserving this high level of civilized interactions.
Are you opposed in principle to even higher levels?
> Time and time again, when it comes to the subject of Israel and Palestine, it has been shown that the discourse never meets the minimum standards I usually enjoy here. To the point where I am not sure if it's even theoretically possible.
How much compute did you apply to the proposition, and what set of algorithms are you personally working with?
> To use your metaphor - if this were a forum about juggling, I would generally expect people to have an honest interest in juggling, and to have discussions about juggling.
Agreed. This site is, to some degree, about systems and programming, which involves analysis and logic. I would therefore expect that people would at least have at least some interest in the exercise of sound analysis and logic....and yet, as you note, on certain topics our normal standards within this system (HN forums) cannot be met. Is this not a rather curious phenomenon? Do you believe that it is perhaps worthy of some analysis (especially considering lives are literally in the balance)?
> If every discussion about curling, on my juggling forum, devolved into abuse - it would be reasonable to avoid discussing curling (at a certain point).
A problem: that which can be "reasoned" is not necessarily true.
Another problem: sometimes action (and inaction) has deadly consequences. If it was you living in Israel or Gaza, do you think you would be advising complacency and disinterest on this matter?
It's not that I don't have an opinion (or even a strong one!) on this subject. The point is that everyone (and their mother) has a strong opinion, not only on the absolute morality of a side's actions, but on the morality of each source, of each agency involved, with various amounts of prejudice and superstition baked in.
Even worse, not one side is willing to really compromise. Even for the root issue of the Israel/Palestine conflict itself, it's impossible to "square the circle" on both the rights of each side, the motives of each side and the actions of each side. There's so much history and (mis) information flying around that it's hard for anyone to make a logical argument or contribute in a meaningful way.
I believe all of the above to be true and I believe the above could be overcome with earnest effort from both "sides" (if we are calling it that). Very, very rarely have I ever seen any attempt at compromising or meeting in the middle or having even a respectful conversation about this subject. So, inevitably, the conversation devolves into a mud-fight.
It's like "Godwin's Law" of geopolitics: any conversation about the Israel/Palestine conflict inevitably devolves into mud-slinging where both sides compare the other to Nazis.
So, forgive me if I want my tech-related forum to remain "mud-free".
I'm curious: do you present the above as opinions, or facts?
If facts, from where have you acquired the knowledge?
If opinion, have you any interest in the facts?
Reminder: THOUSANDS have died already, and many more will presumably due in the future. I appreciate that you prefer enjoying a psychologically comforting forum experience, but have you no concern for the experience of others on this planet?
If the vast majority of HN users can't juggle three balls simultaneously, but the few experts can, it seems fair that the experts shouldn't be restricted from juggling, as long as they comply with the rules.
So I believe that civilian casualties are intentional, and all the talk of safe areas (with no clear indication of what these areas are) is just a sham.
Watch the full interview. They offer him many outs, saying that perhaps there is a language barrier, and that he's going to do no favours to his country by saying that. But he insists that it is exactly what he means.
I don't speak Italian so can't do that but regardless of you have to find a former ambassador to Italy then you're scratching around, he was looking out of his post before any strategy of this war was fought and Israel was using the containment strategy re Gaza/Hamas prior to Oct 7
Russia v Ukraine and Israel v Gaza are incomparable, except that they're both wars. A comparable war would be other counter-terrorist warzones like Mosul or Raqqa which in fact have much higher civilian death rate than Gaza.
And that's even taking the UNWRA/ Gaza Health numbers at face value, which somehow indicate zero combatants killed in airstrikes.
You are confusing reported and estimated casualties. The reported civilian deaths in the nine-month Battle of Mosul were around 10k. A later estimate put the total number of civilian deaths to ~40k.
The numbers from Gaza are reported deaths, and nobody is seriously disputing them anymore. They are pretty consistent with the claims Israel is making. About two thirds of them should be civilians. That means a bit over 10k dead civilians after 2 months. True civilian casualties are likely higher, but the situation on the ground makes reliable estimates impossible.
I saw some of the incursion footage. How many of the hamas troops in the October 7 incursion were women? 0, from what I saw in the footage the only women involved were isreali victims getting kidnapped. Mostly of the incursion was done by males clearly in their 20s/30s. Perhaps few 19+, but I didn't see any kids participating in it either.
Sure, there might be some women helping out, but we can say it is mostly men, and 99% of the women killed, and most of the kids under 17 are victims of IDF's indiscriminate bombing, paid by our taxes.
If you want to defend war crimes, keep on going, but I feel sick how some goons in the tech community are justifying the killing by saying a '11 year old' is probably a hamas terrorist.
If you want to keep the discourse HN-worthy then delete the last para.
But btw apparently cctv footage showed women and children participating in Oct 7 massacre https://freebeacon.com/national-security/children-as-young-a... (not checked site credibility but it's not the only place mentioned). Not saying that I (or Israel) would airstrike young teen's house because they joined in an atrocity but just addressing your claim that zero women/kids involved...
Regardless the footage shows many who are just as likely 17 or 18 which are counted amongst the "children" count in the reported death tolls when it's entirely likely that are are plenty of 17 and 18yo (and younger) fighters in Gaza right now.
Women (on average) are much less likely to be combatants or pose a threat, are physically more vulnerable, and (as the only people who can bear children) are more important than men for preserving the future of humanity.
The reason people think only 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed is that is lowball number the UN made up to not offend and anger Russia and China.
It is estimated that 25,000-75,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed just in Mariupol and surrounding areas.
percentage wise, Absolutely yes. Ukraine is 40mil.
If the current rate was sustained in the Ukraine/russia, we would have seen at least 400k death rates. The estimates are 10-20x less. (between 10 and 20k)
You lost the plot, when even a goon like Putin is starting to look more human and conducting a massive war with less civilian casualties.
"Intentional mass murdering of civilians" is what Palestine did to start this war in the first place. So even if Israel were deliberately targeting civilians (there's no evidence for this) they would still be on the right side of this conflict.
bruh.... this is clearly 'faschist' type of argument. "They deserve it". The dehumanizing of a whole population is just sick.
Last times this happen in europe were: 1) WW2, 2) The massacres in the Yogoslavian wars, and especially in Sebrenica which was a clear ethnic cleansning/genocide and the war leaders ended up getting convicted for war crimes and crimes against the humanity.
Benjamin Netanyahu is on the way to become the next Milosevic, a war criminal.
What a blatant lie. The Siege of Mariupol alone is estimated to have killed somewhere between 25000 and 75000 civilians. The UN's fraudulent claim that "only 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed" is a blatant lie to keep China and Russia happy.
Any discussion about collateral damage should take population density into consideration. The population density of Ukraine is 63 per square kilometer. The population density of Gaza is 5500 per square kilometer.
Nope. There are isolated reports which are of doctors in Gaza saying they have a seen burns that they estimate to be white phosphorus but (a) it's their guess it could be from any number of munitions/explosives (b) phosphorus used legally in flares could cause injuries if they fall unspent (c) Gaza doctors like everyone under Hamas rule cannot speak freely to press.
The reports from Lebonon are isolated incurred that are highly inclusive too. Plus this accusation is used as part of the anti-Israel "genocide" narative that Israel simply wants to harm Gazans/Palestinians civilians, but why on earth even according to this beer particular view would it use white phosphorus as a munition in Lebanon?
We did give lots of aid to Ukraine and we somehow were able to have discussions about whether we should continue to do so, in a relatively civilized manner. [0]
Somehow, when it comes to Israel and/or Palestine, all nuance gets lost, my "side" is "right", and the other "side" is an unholy abomination, morally disgusting or some other thing without room for earnest discussion.
I'll let the rest of this thread speak for itself.
It's hard to look at the events of October 7 and not conclude that they are "unholy abomination, morally disgusting".
It may be that they were provoked by equally abominable behavior by the other side. I'll leave that to each person's conscience. But it's quite undeniable that at least one side committed unspeakable atrocities, and there's no merit in saying "Oh, there's no point in demonizing them just because they disagree".
This isn't a difference of opinion. There is actual violence going on, like real horror-movie stuff. It may be that both sides are demonic, but there's no way to make the case that neither side is.
I'm not sure the Canadian government ever pretended to 'fight for the people'. 'Rights' in Canada are completely different to what most consider a right and mean something very different to rights in the US. The Canadian government model is characterized by 'Peace, order and good governance' - it just so happens that 'good governance' means protectionist policies for this administration.
